ÇATALHÖYÜK 2002 ARCHIVE REPORT

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Çatalhöyük West Mound Study Season 2002

Çatalhöyük Batı Höyüğü Çalışma Sezonu 2002

Catriona Gibson, Jonathan Last, Tiffany Raszick, Sheelagh Frame

 

Introduction

For various reasons no fieldwork was undertaken on the West Mound this year.  However, a study season allowed analysis of pottery, lithics and faunal remains excavated in previous seasons to continue.

 

Özeti

Çeşitli sebeplerle bu yıl batı höyüğünde kazı çalışması yapılamamıştır. Buna karşın, gerçekleştirilmiş olan çalışma sezonu, önceki yıllardaki kazılarda ortaya çıkarılan çanak-çömlek, taş ve hayvan kalıntıları üzerinde yürütülen analizlerin sürdürülmesine olanak tanımıştır.

Çanak-Çömlek Catriona Gibson ve Jonathan Last

Kullanılmakta olan analiz programı, batı höyüğünden gelen erken kalkolitik çanak-çömleğinin çeşitli yönleri hakkında bilgi sağlamaya yönelik olarak tasarlanmıştır. Bu program, doğu höyüğündeki neolitik buluntularla karşılaştırma yaparak seramik teknolojisinde ve işlevlerindeki uzun dönemli değişiklikleri araştırma olanağı sağlamanın yanı sıra, diğer eşzamanlı yerleşimlerle, özellikle de Konya ovası yüzey araştırması kapsamında araştırılan yerleşimlerle karşılaştırma yapmayı da mümkün kılacaktır. Program ayrıca hem kullanım alanının, özellikle de B25'in farklı alanlarının, hem de farklı tür dolguların oluşma süreçlerinin bağlamsal analizini yapmak için temel oluşturacaktır.

Bu sezon toplam 5224 parçanın analizi yapıldı. (Bunların 2234'ünün tam analizi yapıldı, 2990 küçük parça ise tarandı). Analizi yapılan parçaların %25'i kenar, %11'i taban, ve %3.5'u sap parçalarından oluşuyordu. Üzerinde çalışılan parçaların yüzde ellibeşini bezemeden yoksun parçalar teşkil ediyordu, kalan kısımda ise boyanmış motifler bulunmaktaydı. 2000 sezonundan kalan çalışılamamış parçalar bu sezon analiz edildi. Ayrıca 2001 sezonunun bütün 'birincil' kalkolitik bağlamları ile pek çok geniş 'ikincil' bağlam üzerinde çalışıldı. Bu analizin sonuçlarına bir örnek olarak söyleyebiliriz ki, büyük bir farkla en sık rastlanan dekoratif motif, hem açık hem kapalı formlarda görülen kırmızı boyalı yatay zigzag motiftir.

 

Yontulmuş Taş - Tiffany Raszick

2002 sezonun odaklandığı nokta, sadece güvenli kalkolitik üniteleri üzerine yoğunlaşarak, Batı Çatalhöyük buluntu grubu içindeki kalkolitik tespit tiplerinin daha net biçimde belirlenmesine başlamak olmuştur. Bu çalışma 1998, 2000 ve 2001 sezonlarında toplanmış materyalleri de kapsamıştır. Temel amaçlar, farklılıklar gösteren kesici endüstrisinin geniş anlamda daha iyi anlaşılması ve farklı bağlamsal ünitelerin analizi yoluyla yerleşim yeri içi farklılıkların anlaşılmasına başlanmasıdır. Ayrıca, obsidiyen buluntuların güvenli kalkolitik bağlamlardan alınan bir örnekleme toplamı ICP analizi için Stanford Üniversitesine gönderilmiştir. 1998 yılında Dr. T. Carter batı höyüğünde, erken kalkolitik I. üniteleri ve bir adet erken kalkolitik II. ünitesine ait çukurlardan yedi örnekleme toplamıştı. Her ne kadar sınırlı da olsa bu örnekleme toplamı göstermiştir ki, materyal tipleri ve kaynaklarıyla, üretilen nesne türleri arasında bir korrelasyon oluşturma potansiyeli mevcuttur. İlerideki araştırmalar bu konuyu açıklığa kavuşturmalıdır. Ayrıca neolitik kolleksiyonuyla ileride yapılacak karşılaştırmalar, materyalin zaman içerisindeki kullanımını anlamamıza yardımcı olacaktır.

 

Hayvan Kemikleri - Sheelagh Frame

Çatalhöyük'teki kalkolitik batı höyüğünden gelen hayvan kemikleri üzerindeki analizler bazı ilginç sonuçlar vermeye başlamaktadır. Tüm olarak ele geçen toplam 51,336 kemik parçasından 4878'inin türleri nihayet tanımlanmıştır. İnsan-hayvan etkileşiminin evcil hayvanlar üzerine odaklandığı açıkça görülmektedir ki bunların çoğunluğunu tanımlanan kemiklerin %88'ini oluşturan küçükbaş hayvanlar teşkil etmektedir. Bu türlere tanımlanabilen kemikler içinde koyun-keçi oranı 7:1 oranında koyun ağırlıklıdır. Bu koyun-keçi oranı neolitik höyükte bulunanla benzerlik gösterse de, koyun ve keçinin genel öneminin dramatik bir biçimde arttığı görülmektedir. Toplamın %6'sını oluşturan büyükbaş hayvanların boyutlarının görece olarak küçük olması bunların da evcilleştirilmiş olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu önemlidir çünkü doğu höyüğündeki çalışmalar neolitik dönemdeki büyükbaş hayvanların evcilleştirilmemiş olduğunu göstermektedir. Yani bu kalkolitik büyükbaş hayvanlar bölgedeki en eski evcilleştirilmiş büyükbaş hayvanlar olabilir. Evcilleştirilmiş nüfusun, vahşi neolitik nüfusla ne şekilde ilişkili olduğuysa henüz bilinmemektedir.

 

Pottery - Catriona Gibson & Jonathan Last

Pottery is being recorded on pro forma sheets for entry into a computerised database.  Sherd counts and pottery weights are recorded for all units.  Beyond that a three level recording system has been devised:

'primary' contexts (undisturbed Chalcolithic deposits assigned to particular spaces) are recorded in full;

'secondary' contexts (Chalcolithic deposits with some intrusive material, or those excavated before spaces were fully defined) have all diagnostic material recorded (rims, bases, handles, selected decorated body sherds);

'tertiary' contexts (Byzantine and mixed deposits) are simply sorted for illustration-worthy material.

Full analysis of the material recovered from heavy residues (4 mm fraction) provides some control over biases caused by hand collection in the field (from dry sieving), including counts of fragments less than 20 mm in size, which are not reliably recovered by hand.

The sheets record information on technology and manufacture (fabric, wall thickness, firing, surface treatments), typology (form, decorative motifs) and deposition/ formation processes (size, abrasion).  Mellaart's (1965) publication on West Mound pottery provides a useful summary of the range of vessel forms and decorative motifs represented on the site but lacks:

a contextual/spatial analysis of ceramic assemblages;

information on pottery fabrics;

quantitative data on the proportions of different vessel forms, sizes and surface treatments.

The current programme of analysis is therefore designed to provide information on all these aspects of the Early Chalcolithic pottery from the West Mound.  This will allow comparisons with the East Mound Neolithic assemblages and investigation of long-term changes in ceramic technology and functions, as well as comparisons with other contemporary sites, especially those investigated by the Konya Plain Survey.  It will also form the basis for a contextual analysis of the use of space, particularly in the different spaces of B25, and of the formation processes of different types of deposit.

Some of the specific research questions we are seeking to answer include:

were different vessel forms decorated in particular ways?

do particular vessel forms show a relationship to fabric, firing or surface finish?

are any relationships apparent between archaeological context and pottery type?

what patterns of sherd refits are there across the assemblage, and what do these imply about discard practices?

how distinctive in terms of form and fabric are the 'imported' (Gelveri and Can Hasan-type) sherds?  What sort of contexts are they found in?

what evidence is there for the re-use of sherds (e.g.  as rounded 'pot-discs')?

This season a total of 5224 sherds were analysed (2234 were fully analysed and 2990 small body sherds were scanned).  Of those analysed, 25% were rims, 11% were bases and 3.5% were handles.  Fifty-five percent of all sherds studied lacked decoration but the remaining exhibited some sort of painted motif.  All of the backlog material from 2000 has now been analysed; in addition, all of the 'primary' Chalcolithic contexts from 2001 were studied along with many of the large 'secondary' contexts.

As an example of the results of this analysis, we can say that by far the most common decorative motif is the red-painted horizontal zig-zag, which appears on both open and closed forms.  There is always a range of techniques used when applying this particular pattern: on some examples it is very fine and meticulously painted, while on others the application is more sloppy - sometimes applied with a coarser brush and occasionally smeared (deliberately?) when the vessel surface was subsequently burnished.  Quantifying these 'finer' and 'coarser' applications will allow comparison with other motifs and between different vessel forms, helping to build an understanding of the rules of pottery decoration (and the extent of variability within that).

Another interesting question is whether the functions of some vessels altered during their use-lives.  Some of the sherds analysed show reapplication of slips or paint, over existing surfaces and motifs.  Do these represent simple repairs to scratched or damaged areas, or were there other reasons for altering the appearance of some vessels, perhaps even analogous to the re-plastering of wall paintings on the Neolithic East Mound?  The quantitative approach outlined above needs to be married with an attention to the 'biographies' of particular pots and the techniques (if they can be recognised) of individual potters.

 

Chipped Stone - Tiffany Raszick

It has been the focus of the 2002 season to begin to more clearly identify diagnostic Chalcolithic 'types' within the Çatalhöyük West assemblages, focusing solely on the secure Chalcolithic units.  This included material collected from the 1998, 2000, and 2001 seasons.  The main objectives were to develop a fuller understanding of the varied blade industry, in the broadest sense, and to begin to examine intra-site variability through an analysis of the distinct contextual units.  Preliminary results of this season's work are as follows:

An attempt to distinguish the different blade industries has involved the development of a typology of blade types.  The objective is to discern any metrical associations between various attributes.  This will ultimately provide more detailed information on the many varied techniques utilised in blade production.

One important aspect of the work to be undertaken on the assemblages from Central Anatolia is to distinguish a discrete Chalcolithic diagnostic set.  This in part involves recognising artefacts of Neolithic origin being re-used in the Chalcolithic.  Thus far, the identification of Chalcolithic diagnostic types is as follows:

Truncated blades are known from earlier aceramic Neolithic contexts and in a more limited way, from later PPNB contexts.  The unusual reappearance and disappearance of this blade technique makes it an interesting focus for study.  In the Chalcolithic assemblage from the West Mound truncated blades appear in greater proportions than has been recognised in the nearest Neolithic, indicating another shift in focus for the blade industry.

There are a variety of techniques being employed for the production of obsidian points.  Thus far, there are no two alike.  This may be the result of personal choice or personal ability.  The recovery of more artefacts of this type in future seasons will greatly aid in developing an understanding of this particular object type.

One artefact type common to Chalcolithic assemblages in the Near East is the transverse arrowhead.  In Central Anatolia, the time depth for these objects throughout the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age has not been determined.  In the material analysed thus far from the West Mound one such object has been identified.  Associated dates may allow us to place it in the earliest part of the Chalcolithic period on the Plain.

Microlithic technologies are presumed to have ended sometime in the Neolithic.  This may in part be true but analysis of the West Mound material shows there may be a new Chalcolithic micro-retouch technology.  The artefacts are produced on specific types of blanks and specific areas of those blanks.  While these results are only preliminary, further work could provide exciting results.

Additionally, a sample collection of obsidian artefacts from secure Chalcolithic contexts has been selected and sent to Stanford University for ICP analysis.  In 1998, Dr. T. Carter collected seven samples from the West Mound, from Early Chalcolithic I units and an Early Chalcolithic II pit unit.  The results of this, albeit limited, collection have shown that there is a potential correlation to be made between material types and source, and the type of object produced.  Further analysis should help to clarify this and will also contribute to our understanding of the use of material through time when compared with the Neolithic collection.

 

 Animal Bone Report - Sheelagh Frame

Introduction

During the 2002 season at Çatalhöyük, work continued in the recording of the bone assemblage from the Chalcolithic West mound. Due to the excellent preservation of the bones and the retrieval methods used by the excavators, whereby all material is screened through a 4mm mesh, the volume of bone excavated precludes a full analysis of all the contexts. Instead, we used a modified version of the 'priority' sampling strategy discussed in other archive reports (Russel and Martin 1998). In this case once we had eliminated all of the contexts that might have been disturbed by later activities including the Roman/Byzantine burials and the excavations in the 1960's we were left with just over 100 secure contexts. The bones from 80 of these contexts, including the bones from the flotation samples, have now been fully analysed. For a more detailed discussion on the contexts chosen for analysis see the West archive report (Gibson and Last 2002).

The results presented below are based on a large sample of bones but the excavation in 2003 could significantly modify them. Due to the nature of the site, in particular the large number of Byzantine graves, a high percentage of the undisturbed contexts excavated in the first three seasons were house fill units.  The relative lack of pits or midden deposits is potentially a significant bias in the analysis of the human-animal interactions. The limited data we have from the pits suggests that some of the larger animals especially cattle and ass, may be more common in pits than in house fill and therefore more common overall then the current report suggests.  Additionally, some of the house fill deposits appear to be specialized deposits perhaps associated with house abandonment.

Analysis of the ceramic material has demonstrated that material from both ECI and ECII are present at Çatalhöyük. The Early Chalcolithic I phase is currently represented by a small number o f contexts. Due to the small size of the ECI assemblage and the problem of comparing different context types, bones from both periods have been analysed together in the general trends. There is a brief discussion of the differences of the two phases at the end of that section

 

General Trends

In the 2002 season, approximately 20,000 pieces of bone were recorded, bringing the total number of specimens recorded to 51,336 of which 20,167 have been identified to element and 4,878 (19.2% of the bones identified to element) have been identified to genus. In this report only the mammalian bone will be discussed. The bird bones are currently being analysed by Nerissa Russel and Kevin McGowan at Cornell and will appear in a separate report.

The percentage of identifiable specimens in a collection is highly dependant on recovery techniques and on decisions made by the zooarchaeologist during analysis, making inter-site comparisons difficult.  However, the increase in percentage of identifiable bones between the Neolithic mound at Çatalhöyük, which used identical retrieval and analysis methods, indicates that the assemblage from the Chalcolithic mound has a lower fragmentation rate. This appears to be related to distinct butchery and disposal practices during the Chalcolithic rather than to post-depositional factors

The mammalian taxa identified include sheep, goat, cattle, horse, onager, European wild ass, dog, wild boar/pig, red deer, roe deer, fox, hedgehog, badger and hare. This is a slightly narrower range of species than on the Neolithic mound, although the species missing from the Chalcolithic deposits; wolf, bear, fallow deer and wild cat, are represented by only a few bones each out of a huge Neolithic assemblage and their absence from the West mound could be due to sampling size bias. However, it is interesting to note that at least two of the four missing species; bear and wildcat are thought to have entered the Neolithic site as skins. The absence of these rare species in the Chalcolithic could indicate a reduction in range of environments exploited either directly or through exchange relationships or a reduction in the hunting of fur-bearing animals.

Together sheep, goat and cattle make up 95.5 % of the Chalcolithic assemblage using the NISP method of calculating frequency and 95.0% using the diagnostic zone method. (Table 1. See previous archive reports for discussion of these quantification methods). The caprids alone make up 90.1% and 88.9% using the two different methods. While it is normal for Chalcolithic assemblages in Central Anatolia to be dominated by sheep and goat this is an exceptionally high number and requires some explanation. 

Before considering cultural explanations such as site specialization it is important to eliminate possible distortions caused by post-depositional factors including excavation.  As mentioned above most of the contexts analysed are from house fill, which is distinct from midden deposits in composition and history. Comparing the house fill to the one ECII pit that has been excavated highlights the importance of contextual analysis in zooarchaeological interpretations. The relative percentages of the taxa from the pit fill (context 2910 and 2911) are significantly different from the site as a whole (Graph 1).

Using the diagnostic zone method the percent of caprids drops to 74.5% while cattle rises from 6.1% to 12% of the assemblage. Another significant change is in the number of equid bones which are made up of both horse and wild ass bones and which increase from barely 2% of the total site to 9.9% of the pit.

Although only one pit has been excavated it is clear that a contextual analysis is vital to interpreting the entire faunal assemblage. A note of caution is necessary however. This is only one pit and it may not be representative of either pits or of the ECII phase. There was also a noticeable discrepancy between the wet sieved and the dry sieved material in context 2911, suggesting that a portion of the smaller bone fragments - mainly sheep and goat bones - may have been missed in the screening process or mislabelled during the washing process and therefore underrepresented in the final analysis. Nevertheless is seems clear that there are at least two different disposal contexts on the site that create distinct patterns in the assemblage. It will be necessary to examine more pit contexts - and also to determine how common these pits are, in order to clarify how different Çatalhöyük West is from other Early Chalcolithic sites.

Osteometric data is limited for most of the species but the visual size ranges are suggestive. The cattle bones appear to be generally smaller than the Neolithic cattle. The cattle from the Neolithic site have recently been determined to be morphologically wild throughout the occupation of the east mound (Russel and Martin 2002). If the West mound cattle are indeed smaller they may be among the earliest domestic cattle in the region. The potential to clarify the process of cattle domestication in Central Anatolia is one of the most exciting prospects of further zooarchaeological research on the west mound.

The majority of sheep and goat fall within the range of domestic animals but there are clearly two distinct populations of goat, one of which is very large and robust and probably wild. Overall, however there appears to be a slight reduction in the size of both domestic caprid species although this is tentative. The ratio of sheep to goat is approximately 7:1 which is very similar to the Neolithic ratio.

Very little can be said about the equid species except that three separate species continue to appear in small numbers including, E. Caballus (identified primarily by size), and E. hydruntinus and E. hemionus (identified by tooth morphology). The presence of three distinct species of equid suggests that there are at least three distinct eco-zones in the region of the site and that all three of them were at least occasionally exploited by the prehistoric inhabitants of the mound. The presence of horse is particularly interesting since prior to the recent excavations at Çatalhöyük it was thought to have been absent from the Konya plain before the Bronze Age. It now seems it was present at least through the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. 

 

Discussion

The pattern of rubbish deposition on the west mound is significantly different from the densely populated Neolithic site. Whereas on the east mound empty 'courtyards' between buildings, as well as narrow spaces between building walls seem to have been used as open rubbish dumps by groups of houses, no such concentrations are evident in the Chalcolithic period. So far rubbish tips appear to have been in pits dug for that purpose, and are relatively small perhaps limited to single households in a much less densely occupied settlement. The pit discussed above was of mixed material including pottery, with a range of abrasion, weathering, gnawing and burning. It may have consisted of several layers of post-consumption waste, some of which were left exposed for periods of time and some of which were covered rapidly. There is some evidence from staining that dung was also buried in this pit. Apart from the occasional pit there are a few concentrations of material within the fill contexts that appear to be small dumps of mixed household rubbish.

In general the material in the fill is not very dense and appears to have been rapidly buried once it was dumped, producing multiple contexts of medium brown, unabraded bone, and leaving many delicate hyoid bones undamaged as well as pairs of phalange that were possibly articulated when deposited. Some of these deposits are particularly coherent and may represent a single discard event where one or two individuals were butchered or where the butchery waste was discarded. It is clear that these open spaces did not serve as courtyard middens although some rubbish was dumped in them. Some of these deposits may have been abandonment deposits, although they could equally be the result of casual use of old buildings for slaughter of sheep or goats or the disposal of occasional waste.

There are striking differences in butchery patterns between the  west and east mounds. On the west mound there are several examples of caprid cervical vertebra including atlas and axis vertebra that have been cloven in half along the cranial/caudal axis, apparently splitting the spine, and the whole carcass, in half. Femoral heads are also occasionally found split cleanly in half. Ribs and vertebra are much more common in the post-consumption waste than in the Neolithic assemblage suggesting that they were not separated from the limbs in the early stages of butchery. Usually this kind of butchery is associated with metal tools although it would have been possible to do with a fine ground stone axe, or very large obsidian blade. Whether or not a new technology was used at Çatalhöyük,  it is clearly a new method of dividing up a carcass and probably relates to other changes in the way food is prepared and shared.

 

References

Russell, N. and Martin, L. 1998 Çatalhöyük Animal Bone Report 1998.

Russell, N. and Martin, L. 2002 Çatalhöyük Animal Bone Report 2002

 

Table 1: Relative Abundance of Mammalian Species

 

 

Table 2: Relative Number of Identified Taxa

 

 

Graph 1:  Relative Proportion of Taxa by Context Type

 

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© Çatalhöyük Research Project and individual authors, 2002